Omnipotence And Sovereignty Are Two Different Things

God was omnipotent before creation, He became sovereign afterward.

As Omnipotent, God possesses all power. As Sovereign He shares it.

“Sovereignty,” of course, implies relationship and is often defined in terms of control, i.e., how much control the Sovereign – in this case God – exerts over His subjects. Obviously, God as Sovereign has absolute authority – He is still all powerful – but He has chosen not to exercise that authority absolutely. Control is a part of the picture but only a part.

Omnipotence is power without limits, shape or application. God has always had “all power” but before creation it was only an unexpressed attribute. It couldn’t be measured, categorized or used by others. Before creation there was no one else to use it.

Designing and assembling the created order changed all that. Power management – sovereignty – became an issue after creation and it involves more than one person. In fact, it involves every person.

There are many power processes neglected, abused or well managed only by humans: